I agree with you for the most part. But shouldn't there be a point in which belief can be detrimental? Like say, your child believes that mermaids are real. It doesn't hurt anything for her to believe that. But some parents feel the motivation to correct it, so that their children will believe what they perceive as the truth.

Sure, and if it was a dangerous belief like "I can fly so I'm going to jump off of this 30th floor balcony to demonstrate" then it absolutely makes sense to try to disprove their belief.

Some people have beliefs that aren't particularly dangerous, but they're nutty. Bump and CoMo are an examples of people with many of these beliefs. I think it's OK to try to straighten these people out too, but it's not as important to do it as if their beliefs were actually dangerous.

But this is a case of a widespread belief that isn't harmful and often, IMO, actually improves people's lives.

Quote:

Originally Posted by KC Fish

I think most times, people like Dave Lane are trying to show people what they believe is the truth. It's not necessarily motivated by a need to prove someone else wrong, but a need to provide what they honestly feel is truth. Even though it doesn't always come out that way.

In the case of this thread, dirk's grandmother was so convinced in Heaven that she wanted to die before her physical body was ready to give up. If there isn't a heaven, then she would be ceasing her existence earlier than what would be natural, and would be missing part of life because of incorrect beliefs. It's a slippery slope for sure, but I can understand why people are passionate about both sides, and would say something as opposed to simply letting a loved one believe something you think is wrong.

I doubt that that's really a fair take. It sounds to me like his grandmother chose to allow her body to expire naturally rather that to undergo a major surgical intervention with who knows what kind of downstream implications in terms of quality of life. He doesn't say what kind of quality of life she'd been experiencing or what she could expect if she went through with the life extending surgery, but I doubt that she was ready to go to heaven if life was still grand.

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